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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26793088">we cannot look upon love's face without dying</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/aeviternal/pseuds/amells'>amells (aeviternal)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>as if i had a string somewhere under my left ribs [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Wayhaven Chronicles (Interactive Fiction)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Book 2, F/M, Missing Scene, the Photograph Scene™</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 06:41:58</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,011</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26793088</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/aeviternal/pseuds/amells</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>After her recovery, Sanja the fortune-teller has a gift for her would-be rescuer.</p><p>Adam has hidden from others for nine centuries. Perhaps it's about time he get used to being seen.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Detective/Adam du Mortain, Female Detective/Adam du Mortain</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>as if i had a string somewhere under my left ribs [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1917049</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>37</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>we cannot look upon love's face without dying</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>sera said that M and A both have their photos from the carnival but don't have them on display and my dumbfuck brain said TIME TO HYPERFIXATE</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The fortune-teller finds him three days before the Maa-alused are to be permanently located to their new territory.</p><p>Granted, she does not have to look particularly hard. Though strictly speaking resettlement is not the responsibility of a field unit like Bravo, the sensitive nature of the matter — combined of course with the involvement of Wayhaven and their very own detective — has ensured that this once, their duties have changed. </p><p>And so they are engaged in the Maa-alused’s service until the relocation is complete.</p><p>Adam and Agent Lovelace have been working out the finer details of the move for the last six hours. Their handler is not, as Adam knows from experience, a woman who tires easily, and yet there have been bruises under her eyes since first they began, and her usually-immaculate hair is beginning to fall out of its bun.</p><p>Perhaps her daughter’s habits are rubbing off on her, because certainly, she resembles the detective a great deal more now, with fatigue dogging her steps.</p><p>A pen clicks in her hand, her thumb jumping up and down on its end, and on occasion she slides it between index and middle finger as though she were considering bringing it to her mouth.</p><p><em> Did she smoke once? </em> Adam wonders idly. Strange, how knowing the daughter has brought the mother into new light. Is Detective Lovelace’s nicotine habit inherited?</p><p>He shakes his head. <em> Focus. </em></p><p>“The escort team will be ready, obviously, but we’ll need to be on standby to cover any hiccups there might be.” She makes a note beside a paragraph on her briefing page. “Just in case.”</p><p>‘Just in case,’ by this point, forms the foundation of Adam’s entire philosophy, so he nods. “We will be.”</p><p>“I’m sure the Maa-alused would be more comfortable travelling by mirror, but that’s not exactly feasible.” Agent Lovelace sighs, scratching her cheek. “It’s possible we could—”</p><p>But Adam is only half-listening, because there are footsteps tapping down the hall outside, a heartbeat on the other side of the door, and neither one is recognisable to him.</p><p>He meets Agent Lovelace’s eyes — paler than the detective’s, blue to her brown — and nods towards the door, tensing in his seat. Before either of them can take action, however, the stranger knocks. Once, twice, thrice; three clear, sharp raps.</p><p>In Adam’s considerable experience, the enemy rarely knocks. Still, it is hardly as though they <em>never </em>knock, so he tenses, jaw clenching and eyes narrowing.</p><p>Agent Lovelace shifts slightly in her seat, but otherwise remains calm. “Yes?”</p><p>The door peels open. “Agent Lovelace?”</p><p>“Ah, Sanja.” Agent Lovelace’s heels click against the floor as she draws herself upright, hands smoothing out the creased front of her pencil skirt. “You’re early.”</p><p>The fortune-teller is in a better state than last he saw her; there’s a bruise swelling over the apple of one cheek, and her lower lip remains split on one side, but she no longer carries herself like a walking wound. </p><p>Still, her injuries gall him. He has not been faced with such a failure since— since the detective went limp in his arms, her blood singing in the air around him even as her heart went quieter, quieter, quieter.</p><p>By God, when is it <em>not </em>her?</p><p>“Agent du Mortain,” Sanja greets with a polite smile, her face crumpling only for a second when the cut on her mouth pulls.</p><p>He nods stiffly.</p><p>“We can take this into the other room. Adam, I’ll get back to you about this la—”</p><p>“Actually.” Sanja clears her throat. “I was wondering if I could have a word with Agent du Mortain first? Just for a sec.”</p><p>Agent Lovelace gives him a careful look, eyes narrowing in thought, before she allows, “only as long as that’s alright with Agent du Mortain.”</p><p>Adam’s jaw clenches. He is not certain precisely what she could have to say to him. They have not spoken, he and she, not since that night at the carnival, but her words have not left his thoughts since first she gave them breath.</p><p>Light, darkness. The drop over the cliff. How it feels to balance on a knife’s edge, waiting.</p><p>Has he really always been waiting?</p><p>Still, he nods. Rigid, slow. If she wishes to say something more— if she speaks of June, he can leave. He is not trapped here, not ever.</p><p>Lovelace clears her throat. “Well, make sure you’re quick about it. We still have to go over your territory specifications.”</p><p>With a twitch of her lips, the fortune-teller agrees. </p><p>And then Agent Lovelace is gone, and Adam is alone with her.</p><p>“I, uh— I wanted to thank you, Agent du Mortain.” She settles herself in the chair that Agent Lovelace had just vacated, spreading her hands over the bare tabletop. “For your help the other night.”</p><p>The room is quite suddenly all too small. He shifts, getting to his feet and tucking his chair in; the floors here are hardwood, well-varnished, so it doesn’t even whisper. “You’ve thanked me.”</p><p>“Well, no, not <em> technically.” </em> She meets his eyes, and this time her smile is less polite, more genuine. Still, she hisses when her mouth stretches too wide.</p><p>He folds his arms across his chest. “I do not require thanks.”</p><p>And he means it. It was the detective who found her. It was the detective who saved her, in the end, even if she—</p><p>Well. Even if she did choose him first. In a manner of speaking. Somewhat.</p><p>But thinking on that makes his heart turn over in his chest, makes his belly seize up in a way he cannot — <em> will not </em> — identify, so he swallows down any sentiments he might have and shakes his head.</p><p>The fortune-teller is looking at him. He wonders what she sees.</p><p>“I don’t think you want it, either. Or you do and you don’t know how to handle it.” She laughs, just the once. It is a sad sound. “I think that’s probably often the way with you. But nevermind that.”</p><p>She shakes her head, then tugs her purse into her lap and starts to rummage. “I never put it up, before everything burned. I didn’t have time, you know? But that’s probably for the best.”</p><p>And then, after a second, she’s putting something down on the table; a paper, folded in half once and then once again. </p><p>Adam cocks a brow, but doesn’t take it. Instead, he watches. He is always watching.</p><p>The fortune-teller rolls her eyes. “Take it, du Mortain.”</p><p>He considers asking her what it is, but nothing dangerous can be concealed in something so small, so he leans forward just enough to catch it between two fingers and unfold it.</p><p>And— and perhaps he was wrong. Because something <em>very </em>dangerous indeed is concealed within.</p><p>It’s a photograph.</p><p>Or, rather: it’s <em>the </em>photograph. The one he last saw that first night at the carnival, during the reconnaissance mission that started it all.</p><p>He barely recalls its taking. He had been— he was distracted, as he so rarely is on such missions. But it was different, then; June was with him. Things are all too often different when June is with him, to his shame.</p><p>The detective had buzzed with nervous energy all night, but she had been <em>aglow </em>once they reached the carnival. Wayhaven had never had one, she’d explained. She’d always wanted to go to one. </p><p>“Like in the movies,” she had said around a laugh, her grin sheepish and toothy. “But with less clowns, y’know. They’re <em>shit-</em>scary, man. I saw <em> It </em> when I was a kid and it changed me <em> forever.” </em></p><p>She had had to explain what that meant to him, of course, and he still didn’t fully understand, but— but she was so happy. So beautiful. Her hair had been up in its usual messy bun, and so much of it had fallen into her face, strands of strawberry blonde as though she were a statue of copper or bronze, that he had been hard-pressed not to touch her. To brush it away, to feel the give of her, the warmth, the light. </p><p>So bright. She is, as ever, <em> so bright. </em></p><p>The photographer has failed to capture that; how absolutely and entirely remarkable she is, too brilliant and too vivid for the pale, bland world he has haunted for nigh-on a millennium. </p><p>But she had caught the rest of it. The lights from the carnival are behind their figures, but they catch over June’s profile, turning her red, blue, yellow. Magenta laps over the length of her nose, the swell of her lips; she’s smiling, and it is a thing of so many colours that he cannot name them all. </p><p>Her eyes are dark, but they peer up at this other Adam with such pure effulgence that they have no need of an outside force. She is positively <em>radiant, </em>all over, her extended arm lit in cyan and amber glow, leeching just slightly into his cheek, where she is touching him.</p><p>He remembers how soft her skin was. Or, rather: he thinks of it again — he has never <em>forgotten. </em> </p><p>At times, he presses his fingertips to his face and imagines it to be her touch once more. Her skin. Her warmth. </p><p>When he traces her face in this photo, it is smooth and cold; tacky slightly, in the way of all developed photographs. The disappointment that burns in his gut, then— it is foolishness. It is <em>folly. </em></p><p>He does not remember their being so close. In this singular snapshot of such a long night, his open coat falls over part of hers, shielding with grey wool much of her torso from view. And what is not hidden by his gaping collar is hidden by his arm, wound hesitantly around her waist.</p><p>Even through so many layers of fabric, he had felt the life of her. The heat. It had been… maddening.</p><p>No more maddening than her scent, which had left him dizzy and off-balance. Or the slight quirk to her lips, which he had longed to reach out and learn by hand, by heart. Or her pulse jumping at her exposed wrist, only a finger's breadth from his mouth.</p><p>He does not— he does not like to think on what he had been contemplating at the time. It is shameful to want so much. It is foolish, childish, and above all—</p><p>Above all, it is dangerous.</p><p>Because in seeing this other June, he cannot fail to see this other Adam. And he falls wanting. The light does not stay in touching him, cast most obviously over the planes of June’s lovely face, but it lingers at his corners all the same. On his cheek, where she touches him, and — much less brightly — across his mouth, hinting at his profile.</p><p>Only there, of course; as though it too were afraid of touching him anywhere else.</p><p>And he— he is looking at June Lovelace as though she is the whole world, the sky and the earth and all else in-between, and that <em>will not do. </em> </p><p>Because he has responsibilities. Because she is mortal. Because—</p><p>Adam clenches his jaw, turns his gaze on the wall. “Was that all?”</p><p>The chair creaks as Sanja shifts. “Yeah, that was all.”</p><p>He inclines his head. “Agent Lovelace is expecting you.”</p><p>She clears her throat. “Okay.”</p><p>And then the fortune-teller stands up, swings her purse over her shoulder, and tucks her chair back in. One, two, three steps, all of them quiet; she does not favour heels, the way that his handler does.</p><p>It is only when she reaches the door that she stops. “Adam?”</p><p>He grunts.</p><p>“Just— think about it, won’t you?”</p><p>Does he ever do anything but, these days?</p><p>She sighs. And then, with a creak of the door, she is gone.</p><p>He does not dare look at the photograph again when he folds it — carefully, so carefully — once more into quarters. Nor yet when he tucks it into his pocket. It would be bad luck; it would be stupidity, inviting trouble.</p><p>(He does not need to. His memory, as ever, is impeccable.)</p>
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